Stanley Kwan (China)
Based on a gay erotic novel anonymously posted on the Internet, Stanley Kwan's skillful if slim feature film follows, over several years, the relationship between a shady Beijing businessman Hangdong (Hu Jan) and the student prostitute Lan Yu (Liu Ye) he hires. As if deliberately courting controversy, Kwan's film also deals with the 1989 massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The story jumps months, even years, in time, with no signal except the dialogue between the two men. Lan Yu becomes a kept man until Hangdong decides to go straight and get married to a pretty interpreter. The love story, which marches along lockstep with changes in Communist China, is a kind of soulful torch tale, with the younger man as the sacrificing mistress role and Hangdong as the cad who realizes he really was in love all along. - L.L.

(Wed., Sept. 12, 6:15 p.m., Cumberland; Fri. Sept. 14, 6:45 p.m., Varsity)